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Colorado History Chronology
13,000 B.C. Big game hunters may have occupied area later known as Colorado. Evidence shows that they were here by at least 9200 B.C.
A.D. 1 to 1299 A.D. Advent of great Prehistoric Cliff Dwelling Civilization in the Mesa Verde region.
1276 to 1299 A.D. A great drought and/or pressure from nomadic tribes forced the Cliff Dwellers to abandon their Mesa Verde homes.
1500 A.D. Ute Indians inhabit mountain areas of southern Rocky Mountains making these Native Americans the oldest continuous residents of Colorado.
1541 A.D. Coronado, famed Spanish explorer, may have crossed the southeastern corner of present Colorado on his return march to Mexico after vain hunt for the golden Seven Cities of Cibola.
1682 A.D. Explorer La Salle appropriates for France all of the area now known as Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains.
1765 A.D. Juan Maria Rivera leads Spanish expedition into San Juan and Sangre de Cristo Mountains in search of gold and silver.
1776 A.D. Friars Escalante and Dominguez seeking route from Santa Fe to California missions, traverse what is now western Colorado as far north as the White River in Rio Blanco County.
1803 A.D. Through the Louisiana Purchase, signed by President Thomas Jefferson, the United States acquires a vast area which included what is now most of eastern Colorado. While the United States lays claim to this vast territory, Native Americans have resided here for hundreds of years.
1806 A.D. Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike and small party of U.S. soldiers sent to explore southwestern boundary of Louisiana Purchase; discovers peak that bears his name, but fails in effort to climb it; reaches headwaters of Arkansas River near Leadville.
1807 A.D. Pike crosses Sangre de Cristo Mountains to Conejos River in San Luis Valley and builds Pike's Stockade; placed under nominal arrest by Spanish authorities and taken to Santa Fe; later, he and his men are released.
1820 A.D. Numerous Native American tribes live in the Colorado area. The Utes live in the mountains, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reside on the plains from the Arkansas to the Platte rivers, and the Kiowas and Comanches live south of the Arkansas River. The Pawnee tribe hunts buffalo along the Republican River and the Sioux sometimes hunt in the outskirts of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe lands.
1820 A.D. Major Stephen H. Long is sent by President Monroe to explore southwestern boundary of the Louisiana Purchase. Long's party came up the South Platte River. Long's Peak named for him. Dr. Edwin James, historian of Long's expedition, leads first recorded ascent of Pike's Peak. James Peak, west of Denver, named for him.
1825 A.D. Opening of era of fur-traders, trappers and Mountain Men - Bent brothers, Ceran St.Vrain, Louis Vasquez, Kit Carson, Jim Baker, James Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, "Uncle Dick" Wooten, and Jim Beckworth - who established posts in Arkansas and South Platte Valleys. 1832 A.D. Bent's Fort, one of the most important trading posts in the West, is built by the Bents and St. Vrain near present city of La Junta.
1836 A.D. Texas becomes independent republic and claims narrow strip of mountain territory extending northward through Colorado to 42nd parallel.
Early 1840's A.D. Mexico granted lands to the wealthy, south of the Arkansas Valley and in the San Luis Valley hoping to secure claims against Texas or America.
1842 A.D. Lieutenant John C. Fremont undertakes first of his five exploration trips into Rocky Mountains. His last expedition, in 1853, took him through the San Luis Valley and into the Gunnison River country.
1846 A.D. General Stephen W. Kearney leads Army of the West along Santa Fe Trail through southeastern Colorado en route to conquest of New Mexico during Mexican War.
1848 A.D. By Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico cedes to United States most of that part of Colorado not acquired by Louisiana Purchase.
1850 A.D. Federal Government purchases Texas' claims in Colorado, and present boundaries of Colorado established.
1851 A.D. First permanent non-Indian settlement in Colorado is founded at Conejos in San Luis Valley; irrigation is begun; Fort Massachusetts established in San Luis Valley to protect settlers from Indians who believe that the non-Indians are encroaching on their land.
1853 A.D. Captain John W. Gunnison leads exploring party across southern and western Colorado. Gunnison named for him. Fremont's last expedition, seeking feasible railroad route through mountains, follows Gunnison's route.
1854 A.D. Treaties with Native American groups prove unsatisfactory which results in conflict as the Utes kill fifteen inhabitants of Fort Pueblo on Christmas Day.
1858 A.D. Green Russell's discovery of small placer gold deposits near confluence of South Platte River and Cherry Creek, precipitates gold rush from the East and "Pikes Peak or Bust" slogan. Montana City, St. Charles, Auraria, and Denver City are founded on present site of Denver. November 6, two hundred men meet here to organize County of Arapahoe, Kansas Territory. Pueblo founded as Fountain City.
1859 A.D. Gold is found by George A. Jackson along Chicago Creek on present site of Idaho Springs. March 9, first stagecoach with mail for Cherry Creek settlements leaves Leavenworth, Kansas. April 23, first newspaper in the region, the Rocky Mountain News, is published by William N. Byers. May 6, John Gregory makes famous gold-lode strike on North Clear Creek, stimulating rush of prospectors, who establish camps of Black Hawk, Central City and Nevadaville. October 3, O.J. Goldrick opens first school, at Auraria. Jefferson Territory is organized without sanction of Congress to govern gold camps; officers are elected. Prospectors spread through mountains and establish camps at Boulder, Colorado City, Gold Hill, Hamilton, Tarryall, and Pueblo.
1860 A.D. Rich placer discoveries cause stampede of miners to California Gulch on present site of Leadville. First schoolhouse is built at Boulder. Region continues to be administered variously by Jefferson Territory officials, and Miners' and People's Courts. 1861 A.D. Congress establishes Colorado Territory with boundaries of present state; President Lincoln appoints William Gilpin as first Territorial governor. July, Supreme Court is organized and Congressional delegates chosen. September, first assembly meets, creates 17 counties, authorizes university, and selects Colorado City as Territorial capitol. Manufacture of mining machinery begins. The population of the Colorado Territory is 25,371.
1862 A.D. Colorado troops aid in defeating Confederate General Henry H. Sibley's Army at La Glorieta Pass, New Mexico. Second Territorial Legislature meets for a few days at Colorado City, adjourns to Denver, and selects Golden as the new capitol. First tax-supported schools are established. First oil well drilled near Florence.
1863 A.D. Telegraph line links Denver with East; ten words to New York cost $9.10. Plains Indians attempt to drive white intruders from their hunting lands on the Eastern slopes.
1864 A.D. Tension between non-Indians and the Native American tribes escalates. The massacre (Sand Creek Massacre) of Native American men, women and children in a Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indian encampment by soldiers and settlers stirs Native Americans to fresh violence and overland trails are often closed. Fort Sedgwick is established near Julesburg. Camp Collins established to protect travelers on Overland Trail. Later became Fort Collins. Colorado Seminary (now University of Denver) is chartered; Sisters of Loretto open academy.
1865 A.D. Indian attacks along trails reach highest intensity; food is scarce for settlers and prices high; potatoes bring $15 a bushel and flour costs $40 per 100 pounds. Fort Morgan established for protection against Indians.
1867 A.D. Denver established as permanent seat of government by territorial legislature meeting in Golden. Golden Transcript established by George West.
1868 A.D. Nathaniel Hill erects first smelter in Colorado, at Blackhawk, inaugurating era of hard-rock mining. Battle at Beecher Island in northeastern Colorado fought between U.S. troops and Native Americans as Northern Cheyenne and Sioux tribesmen laid siege for 9 days on 50 U.S. troops until reinforcements arrived. The Pueblo Chieftain established by Dr. M. Beshoar at Pueblo.
1869 A.D. The final military engagement between whites and plains Indians in the eastern part of the territory took place at Summit Springs.
1870 A.D. Denver and Pacific Railroad is constructed to connect Denver with Union Pacific at Cheyenne, Wyoming; the Kansas Pacific enters Colorado from Missouri River. Union Colony is established by Horace Greeley and Nathan C. Meeker at Greeley, and first irrigation canal surveyed there. The Greeley Tribune established. Population of Colorado territory 39,864.
1871 A.D. Colorado Springs is founded by General William J. Palmer. Denver and Rio Grande Railroad is built southward from Denver by Palmer. Colorado School of Mines established at Golden.
1872 A.D. Blackhawk and Central City are connected with Denver by railroad; Denver and Rio Grande reaches Pueblo. Agricultural settlements established throughout South Platte Valley. Out West, later the Colorado Springs Gazette, was established. This year signals an end to the major use of the "Mountain Branch" of the Santa Fe Trail.
1874 A.D. Colorado College is founded at Colorado Springs; territorial legislature appropriates $15,00 for University of Colorado at Boulder, on condition that equal sum is raised by that city. W.H. Jackson, famous photographer of the Hayden Geological Survey, notes ruins of ancient cliff dwellings along the canyon on Mancos River. 1875 A.D. Lead carbonate ores, rich in silver, are found near present site of Leadville. Constitutional Convention of 38 members holds first meeting.
1876 A.D. Colorado is admitted to Union as 38th State; John L. Routt is elected first governor. Greeley's first industry, the tanning of buffalo hides, turns out 12 robes a day.
1877 A.D. University of Colorado opens classes at Boulder, with two teachers and 44 students. State Board of Agriculture is created to develop Agricultural College at Fort Collins.
1878 A.D. Leadville is incorporated; rich silver strikes on Iron, Carbonate, and Fryer hills soon make is one of the world's greatest mining camps. Central City opera house opens. First telephones are installed in Denver.
1879 A.D. Colorado College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts offers instruction at Fort Collins. Nathan C. Meeker, Indian Agent on White River (near Meeker) and several employees are slain in Ute uprising. Major Thornburg and half of his command of 160 soldiers killed in effort to give protection to Meeker. Utes defeated.
1880 A.D. Denver & Rio Grande lays tracks through Royal Gorge and on to Leadville. Great Ute Chief, Ouray, dies. Dry land farming undertaken extensively in eastern Colorado. Population of Colorado, 194,327.
1881 A.D. Ute tribes are removed onto reservations. Grand Junction is founded. Small quantities of carnotite are found in western Colorado along with gold; later, this mineral is found to contain radium. Tabor Opera House opens in Denver, built by H.A.W. Tabor, famous Leadville capitalist.
1882 A.D. Steel is milled in Pueblo from Colorado ores. Company later becomes Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.
1883 A.D. Narrow gauge line of Denver & Rio Grange is completed from Gunnison to Grand Junction. First electric lights are installed in Denver.
1886 A.D. The Steamboat Pilot established at Steamboat Springs. Charles H.Leckenby becomes owner and publisher, 1893. Denver Union Stockyards are established, later becoming largest receiving market for sheep in the nation. Town of Lamar is founded. The last public hanging in Denver occurred when Andrew Green was executed for the murder of streetcar driver, Joseph Whitnah.
1888 A.D. Band of Utes from Utah under Colorow make last Indian raid into Colorado; they are defeated and returned to the reservation. Union Colony at Greeley completes 900,000 acre irrigation project. Cliff Palace ruins, in what is now Mesa Verde National Park, discovered by two cowboys.
1890 A.D. Passage of Sherman Silver Purchase Act raises price of silver to more than $1.00 an ounce. New rich silver strikes are made along Rio Grande and Creede is founded. July 4, cornerstone of State Capitol at Denver is laid. October 3, first building of the State Normal School (now University of Northern Colorado) at Greeley is occupied. Population of state, 413,249. Boulder Daily Camera established by L.C. Paddock.
1891 A.D. Robert Womack's discoveries open great gold field of Cripple Creek. First national forest reserve in Colorado is set aside - White River Forest in Meeker area. Pike's Peak cog railroad begins operation.
1892 A.D. The Denver Post established. H. C. Brown opens Brown Palace Hotel in Denver. 1893 A.D. National panic brings great distress to Colorado. Repeal of Sherman Act strikes silver mining a paralyzing blow and adds to already acute unemployment problems. Grand Junction Sentinel established.
1894 A.D. State Capitol is completed at a cost of $2,500,000. Colorado is second state in the nation to extend suffrage to women, following the precedent set by Wyoming.
1899 A.D. First beet sugar refinery is built at Grand Junction.
1900 A.D. Gold production reaches peak of more than $20,000,000 annually at Cripple Creek, the second richest gold camp in the world. Population of State, 539,700.
1902 A.D. Constitutional amendment permits towns of 2,000 to adopt "Home Rule"; Denver becomes home rule city. Beet sugar refinery built at Fort Collins. David H. Moffat and associates begin construction of Moffat Railroad over the Continental Divide. Completed to Steamboat Springs in 1908 and to Craig in 1913.
1903 A.D. With Ben B. Lindsey as Judge, Denver Juvenile Court opens - the first such court in the United States.
1903 A.D. Mine, mill and smelter workers strike in many camps for higher wages and better working conditions; at Cripple Creek, strike results in much property damage and loss of life; all strike objectives in gold field are lost. Uncompahgre irrigation project, first federal government reclamation project in Colorado, is authorized.
1905 A.D. Colorado has 3 governors in one day in a political squabble. First, Alva Adams, then James H. Peabody, and finally Jesse F. McDonald. Construction of the six mile Gunnison water tunnel started by Bureau of Reclamation.
1906 A.D. United States Mint, Denver, issues first coins. March 12, National Western Stock Show is born with chartering of Western Stock Show Association following successful showing of about 60 head of cattle and horses and a few sheep and hogs in makeshift tent at Stockyards. July 29, Mesa Verde national Park is created by Congress.
1908 A.D. July 7, Denver municipal Auditorium, seating 12,500, is completed in time for the Democratic National Convention, when William Jennings Bryan was nominated the third time for President. August 1, Colorado Day is first celebrated, marking thirty-second anniversary of State's admittance to Union. Dome of the State Capitol is plated with gold leaf at a cost of $14,680.
1909 A.D. Colorado attains first rank among states in irrigation area with 2,790,000 acres under irrigation. Gunnison water tunnel completed by Reclamation Service and opened, on September 23, by President William Howard Taft at the tunnel site. Western State Teachers College opens at Gunnison.
1910 A.D. Population of State, 799,024. Number of farms, 46,170. Colorado voters adopt a constitutional amendment giving to the people the right of the initiative and referendum. May 8, first long distance phone call made from Denver to New York City. First airplane flight in Denver.
1911 A.D. Colorado National Monument west of Grand Junction, created by Presidential order.
1913 A.D. State Tax Commission created by Legislature. Assessed value of Colorado property for tax purposes set at $1,306,536,692. The "Big Snow of 1913" covers Colorado to a depth of 3 - 5 feet; transportation paralyzed for weeks. State begins licensing autos for the first time. 1914 A.D. Strike of coal miners in southern Colorado fields is climaxed by "Battle of Ludlow" near Trinidad; several men, women and children killed during hostilities between miners and the State militia. August: WWI begins.
1915 A.D. Worker's compensation measures are passed: State Industrial Commission is created. Rocky Mountain National Park created by Congress. Toll road for auto travel to top of Pikes Peak built by Spencer Penrose. Construction of Broadmoor Hotel at Colorado Springs started.
1916 A.D. Colorado adopts prohibition. Emily Griffith Opportunity School is opened in Denver. Mining of tungsten causes flurry in Boulder-Nederland area.
1917 A.D. April 6: Congress declares war on Germany and many Coloradans volunteer for service. Colorado reaches maximum mineral production, more then $80,000,000. William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, Famous Indian scout, dies and is buried on Lookout Mountain, west of Denver.
1918 A.D. Agricultural production increased sharply to aid war needs. Dry lands plowed up to produce wheat. Colorado citizens purchase Liberty Bonds by the millions of dollars to help finance war. More than 125,000 Colorado men register for the draft for army service. Fitzsimmons General Hospital established near Denver. Coal production of state reaches new high of 12,500,000 tons. Impetus of war stirs development of mining of molybdenum at Climax, near Leadville - the nation's greatest source of the metal. Denver Tourist Bureau establishes free auto camp ground for tourists at Overland Park, Denver. Other cities follow suit during the next few years. Federal Reserve branch bank established in Denver. Colorado voters approve constitutional amendment providing Civil Service for state employees. November, 11, 1918, Germany surrenders.
1919 A.D. Post-war inflation brings higher prices to farmers and producers; prices of farm land high; wages high; boom times everywhere. Colorado enacts tax of one cent per gallon on gasoline, for building of roads. Monte Vista stages first Ski-Hi Stampede.
1920 A.D. Population of State, 939,629. Employees of Denver Tramway company go on strike. Aroused by editorials in The Denver Post, strikers raid Post building and do much damage to property.
1921 A.D. General Assembly creates State Highway Department with seven man Advisory Board. Colorado begins building concrete highways on main traveled routes. Pueblo suffers disastrous flood in June; scores drowned and property damage amounts to $20,000,000. Post war deflation sets in and decline in prices brings trouble in the rural areas. During the next several years, numerous banks serving farming areas close, price and farm lands decline sharply from levels reached in World War I, and farmers clamor for farm relief.
1922 A.D. Coloradans vote $6,000,000 in bonds for highway construction. Moffat Tunnel Improvement District is created by General Assembly for construction of 6.4 mile bore under Continental Divide to provide better rail connections between Eastern and Western Slopes of the State. First commercial radio license in Colorado is issued, to station KLZ. Daring daylight hold-up of Federal Reserve bank truck is staged as it leaves U.S. Mint in Denver and $200,000 stolen. Robbery never solved.
1923 A.D. Oil discovered in Wellington field north of Fort Collins; flurry of oil stock promotion follows.
1924 A.D. April 26, Colorado is second state to ratify child labor amendment to federal Constitution. Celebration held in Greeley marking completion of concrete pavement between Denver and Greeley - first two major cities in State to be connected by paved highways. Ku Klux Klan secures domination of Republican party in Colorado and elects a pro-Klan Governor and U.S. Senator. 1925 A.D. Adams State Teachers College at Alamosa and junior colleges at Grand Junction and Trinidad are opened.
1931 A.D. Population reaches over one million.
1941 A.D. Denver recruiting offices swamped by over 2,000 enlistments during the month of December as United States enters World War II.
1941-1945 A.D. During World War II agriculture industry has greatest production in Colorado history.
1941-1945 A.D. Growth of military installations in Colorado mushroom.
1942 A.D. Federal government established Amache, a camp for Japanese-Americans who were interned and relocated from their homes on the West Coast.
1945-1950 A.D. Federal government presence in Colorado grows, military installations and scientific institutions continue to develop while many veterans relocate to Colorado. These changes cause a steady increase in population.
1958 A.D. Air Force Academy is built near Colorado Springs and first class graduates in June, 1959.
1950's and 1960's A.D. Numerous water storage and diversion projects are constructed in response to increased agricultural and municipal water demands. Tourist and ski industries blossom. Population continues to increase.
1960 A.D. Colorado gets the Denver Broncos professional football team which eventually wins two Super Bowls.
1962-1965 A.D. Disposition of poisonous wastes into a deep well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal results in earthquakes and hundreds of tremors around the Denver area.
June, 1965 A.D. A cloudburst on the upper reaches of Plum Creek in Douglas and Jefferson counties results in massive flooding along the South Platte River, causing widespread property damage and loss of life. The extensive damage extended from south of Denver all the way to Sedgwick County near the Nebraska border.
1967 A.D. Denver Rockets become Colorado's professional American Basketball Association team. In 1974 they are renamed the Denver Nuggets.
1973 A.D. Eisenhower Tunnel is built beneath the Continental Divide sixty miles west of Denver, making it easier to reach the ski slopes of western Colorado.
1974 A.D. Desegregation of schools in Denver begins as busing attempts to achieve racial balance.
1970's and 1980's A.D. Tremendous growth of Denver suburbs occurs.
1970's A.D. The population swells, traffic problems grow, and the "brown cloud" develops over much of the Front Range. Coloradans become concerned over the consequences of pollution and overselling Colorado and reject hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics as a result.
July 31, 1976 A.D. A cloudburst on the Big Thompson River results in a massive flood in Larimer County, killing more than 145 people. 1980 A.D. Coal mining production in Colorado on the Western Slopes hits all time high as United States becomes more dependent on energy resources at home rather than overseas.
1982 A.D. The state economic structure is shaken when the oil shale giant Exxon announces the closure of its oil shale development fields in Rio Blanco, Mesa and Garfield counties. Thousands are laid off and the economic stability of the western slope of the state is severely impacted.
1980's and 1990's A.D. Major growth of technological industries occurs in Colorado.
1992 A.D. The voters of Colorado pass a citizens' initiative to limit the growth of state and local governments with the passage of the TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) amendment to the state constitution.
1993 A.D. Colorado Rockies become first regional major league baseball team.
1995 A.D. Quebec Nordiques National Hockey League team moves to Colorado to become the Colorado Avalanche.
1998 A.D. Colorado voters elect the first Republican Governor (Bill Owens) to the statehouse in twenty-four years.
2005 A.D. Colorado voters passed at the November elections a five year tax package that will allow state government to retain excess tax revenues to fund various state programs that were previously targeted for reduction or elimination. Referendum C as it was called, was the first successful attempt at modifying the Taxpayers Bill of Rights which was passed thirteen years earlier.


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With losses mounting and customers scarce, a new CEO at Louise's Trattoria has only one chance to turn things around. In August 1997, after a 22-year career in the restaurant industry, Fred LeFranc finally got the call. An investor was buying Louise's Trattoria, a $22-million Italian-dining chain with 15 restaurants in the Los Angeles area. The investor wanted LeFranc as his CEO. Louise's, which dished up homemade pastas, pizzas, and entrées, had won a following in ritzy Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, and Pasadena. But popularity had not translated into profitability. That's why the prospective owner wanted LeFranc. LeFranc's job: to pump up the struggling restaurants and expand. The career move seemed tailor-made for LeFranc, who had helped grow a few companies in the past. The first was El Torito Restaurants in southern California, where he had worked for 10 years. Later he had served as chief operating officer at Una Mas, based in Palo Alto. In the latter position, he had helped expand the Mexican-food chain from 8 restaurants to 25 and had merged it with the Pollo Rey chain, doubling the size of the business. Restaurants were in LeFranc's blood. He had dropped out of his pre-med studies at Chicago's Northwestern University at the age of 19, breaking the heart of his mother, who had emigrated from Mexico and dreamed that her son would become a doctor. He began waiting tables at the Chicago Hilton, eventually working the legendary Pump Room, where Frank Sinatra would show up at 1 a.m. with his entourage in tow and keep the joint hopping until dawn. LeFranc never looked back. At age 41, LeFranc decided to take the top suite at Louise's, eager to grow a new company and try out in a small arena a raft of management theories he'd been testing for years. He got a 5% stake in the company, so he could eventually cash out in a sale or a merger. Plus, he'd be back in southern California, close to where his two teenage children were living. On September 1, 1997, he moved into the main offices of Louise's, which were located far from the restaurants themselves, in a patch of cheap office space near an oil refinery in Torrance. Even before he could tour all the restaurants and shake the hands of his managers, the California State Board of Equalization froze the company's bank accounts, seeking $225,000 -- about three months' worth of overdue sales tax. Unable to write checks to suppliers on the frozen accounts, Louise's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. It was LeFranc's ninth day on the job. "What did I get myself into? This was not part of the deal," LeFranc recalls thinking. Quickly, he called a meeting with his employees and reassured them that Louise's was still afloat. But over the next harrowing months, he delivered another message: In a company blindsided by surprises, Louise's would now follow a policy of truth telling. "And the truth is, we're fucking bankrupt," he told the workers. (When LeFranc is driving home a point, he gesticulates and you can hear the remnant of a Chicago accent.) Honesty would be a two-way street, he said. He would require the managers to be up-front about their operations, just as he would be about the company's finances. The approach was especially crucial at that point, because it was the only way to identify problems, correct them, and surmount the crisis, he said. Then he hit the road to get credit terms restored with his suppliers. LeFranc never says he felt betrayed or misled about the state of affairs he walked into. But he admits that like the rest of the employees, he didn't realize the depth of the chain's problems. He didn't know that the former managers had been using tax receipts to cover expenses. And there was a lot more he wouldn't learn -- until much later. In the $376-billion restaurant industry, pretax income averages only 6%, according to the National Restaurant Association, the industry's main trade group. With unforgiving margins like those, making a go of any restaurant is a herculean effort. And the odds of turning around a bankrupt restaurant are slim. Against that backdrop, LeFranc was in for a fight against both time and hungry competitors. He had to cut losses and generate cash, let deadweight employees go and boost the morale of the people he would keep, and, finally, figure out how to lure customers back to the establishment. He would call upon two skills he'd learned over the years but had never tested in such a harsh environment: using technology to manage a business in maniacal detail and empowering workers to make decisions on their own. Although LeFranc had formidable experience, he had never had to tackle so many crises simultaneously -- and against such odds. Louise's was founded in 1978 and grown by restaurateur Bill Chait, who acquired it seven years later. Chait, according to several people, had an almost instinctive grasp of the business, anticipating and riding the wave of the Italian-food craze that began in the late 1980s. Chait's brother, Jon, financed the chain's second restaurant; over the years, Bill Chait sought and received $14 million in venture capital and loans from Bank of America and Bankers Trust and used the money to expand the chain. But like many other restaurant organizations, Louise's found that undisciplined growth would be its undoing. "They started building restaurants and spending money faster than it was coming in," recalls Jon Chait. Before LeFranc came aboard, Louise's had already closed four restaurants on the East Coast. LeFranc would eventually reduce the total number of restaurants to 13. But despite the chain's obvious problems, it already had its fans. "They had real strong attributes, like high-quality takeout years before it was the norm," says Jim Parish, a Dallas restaurant-investment consultant who advised one of Louise's investors in 1997, when the troubles surfaced. But Parish found the management team lacking. "You need to be aware of costs and build it into your daily discipline. None of that existed," he says. Louise's had also followed a top-down management model in which employees were expected to do as they were told. LeFranc encountered that culture as soon as he visited the restaurants. "I used to ask the managers, 'What do you think should be done?'" he says. "And they looked at me with an expression like, 'What's the right answer?' And I would say, 'No, really, what do you think?' They just weren't used to being asked that question." In 1997, Jon Chait, who was then managing director of Manpower, thought Louise's was promising enough to buy it from his brother and the venture-capital investors, who held a 20% stake. He knew, though, that he would need a professional to take over for his brother, whom he describes as a passionate entrepreneur who was bored by managerial details. (Bill Chait declined to comment for this story.) Using a headhunter, he found LeFranc. But things would hardly go as Jon Chait had planned. After Louise's filed for Chapter 11, the bankruptcy judge threw out Jon's deal to buy the company for $4.5 million. Instead, because there were other people interested in buying the chain, he ordered an auction. Jon ended up paying $7 million for Louise's, which added yet one more financial burden. Under the terms of the sale, which was completed in January 1998, when Louise's exited bankruptcy, Jon put up $3.5 million in cash and gave the creditors a note for another $3.5 million to satisfy their debts. The note paid the creditors principal and interest of about $68,000 a month, which would come out of Louise's already stretched coffers. The hunt In his previous jobs, LeFranc -- an analytical man in any case -- had learned to rely on the grittiest of details. To run a successful restaurant, he believed, he needed to manage what to others might seem like minutiae: the frequency of supply deliveries, the way food is stored in the walk-in refrigerators, the unit costs of premade tomato sauce, seasonal-staffing schedules, targeted marketing promotions, guest counts, average check sizes, and the margins on a plate of food. But the former owners had measured few if any of those details. In the chaotic months after the bankruptcy filing, LeFranc had hardly any of the information he needed. He was flying blind. To add to his troubles, accounts payable was in shambles, and his first chief financial officer quit shortly after the filing. In March 1998, LeFranc lured James McGehee, a controller he had worked with at Una Mas, to come aboard. On McGehee's first day as Louise's controller, a second CFO, on the job for just two weeks, walked into McGehee's office and wished him luck. He, too, was leaving. McGehee, who suddenly became CFO, put a temp to work sorting out stacks of invoices left in the wake of the bankruptcy filing. "In the second week I was there, I caught a duplicate payment of $110,000," he says. He hired everyone he could find, including LeFranc's two kids, to help input the invoices. It took him three months to put together an earnings statement. Louise's was losing $157,000 every 28 days. But where were those losses coming from? Although LeFranc couldn't immediately pinpoint the source of the bleeding, the more he dug, the more he learned. One early focus was the company's commissary, which imported olive oil, cheese, and other ingredients from Italy and then made sauces, salad dressings, and pastas by hand. The commissary was Louise's central-supply operation, selling its goods to the restaurants. At first glance, the setup looked surprisingly healthy. The restaurants paid the commissary a price for supplies that left their food costs at 28% to 29% of revenues. "Then December comes rolling around, and the food costs jump to 50%," LeFranc says. "It's like my stomach goes into a knot." And for good reason. He discovered that the commissary was selling supplies to the restaurants below cost and accumulating losses each month. Then, in December, to erase the $150,000 in losses it had built up all year, it would dramatically raise its prices. Once he figured out what was going on, LeFranc priced the commissary's products at their true cost. The higher prices pushed up the restaurants' food costs to 35%, and all of a sudden operations didn't look so buoyant. In May, LeFranc traveled to Italy to meet the suppliers that were at the root of those costs. "They treated us like kings. And I was very polite. I learned a lot, and as soon as I came back I said, 'OK, we're not going to do business with them anymore,'" he says. He decided to outsource basic foodstuff -- sauces, dressings, and pastas -- to less expensive American companies, and he shut the commissary down. LeFranc also reduced distributors' deliveries to the restaurants from six to three days a week. With fewer deliveries, transport costs declined, and LeFranc was able to wring out better terms for supplies. The new delivery schedule also helped the accounts- payable department, since it meant fewer invoices, down to about 3,000 a year from 20,000. Finally, LeFranc moved the company's headquarters to West L.A. to be closer to the restaurants and, not incidentally, to cut his rent almost in half. With the reengineering of supplies, deliveries, and eventually the menu, food costs fell more than 9 percentage points, to around 25.5% of revenues. By November 1998, 11 months after it had emerged from bankruptcy, Louise's was cash-flow positive. Stopping the bloodletting was one thing. What was less clear was whether LeFranc could create a self-monitoring organization that could survive and grow. The map The key to running such an organization was getting accurate information, which at the broadest level meant an income statement. But to get a really detailed plan that might guide the team forward, LeFranc and his managers would have to parse the profit-and-loss statement into hundreds of components and measure each individually. The cost of pizza dough, the wages of a new chef, the price of napkins -- all of it would need to be tallied for each restaurant, creating the detailed contours of an earnings map. The problem with gathering that wealth of information, however, was that it could be expensive. And LeFranc's top-level staff was lean. He had cut headquarters by about 40%, down to just himself and seven administrators. He didn't like the top-down model anyway, since he felt it stifled initiative and had contributed to the company's troubles. Instead, he wanted managers to become de facto CEOs of their restaurants, using the information they collected to plan and measure their performance. LeFranc would reward the managers based on cash-flow results. For some, the bonuses would push a $55,000 annual salary up to $80,000. To get his program running, LeFranc taught his team to not just read but also analyze an income statement, not something restaurant managers commonly do. He also put his managers through a time-management course designed by Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and had them set goals for both the company and their own careers. He trained the chefs as well, since they were responsible for food and labor costs in the kitchen. Many of them had worked their way up from entry-level dishwashing jobs. "We had to teach some of them how to use a calculator," says CFO McGehee. Change didn't come easy. LeFranc brought in management consultant Nancy Bross to teach the managers planning and goal setting. "All I got were blank stares," Bross recalls. In LeFranc's first year, turnover among managers hit 85%. A few of his employees, however, welcomed the new regime. One of the bookkeepers at the former commissary was a young man named Roger Ortiz, a self-taught whiz at Excel spreadsheets. Impressed by Ortiz's work, LeFranc promoted him from his $10-an-hour job tracking food supplies and trained him as a financial analyst. With McGehee's help, Ortiz began crunching all the numbers that increasingly were letting LeFranc sleep well at night. LeFranc provided all his managers with personal computers and DSL lines in the restaurants so they could feed data quickly to Ortiz. The managers began tallying revenues, expenses, and guest counts daily, entering the figures into spreadsheets. Each Monday morning they E-mailed the spreadsheets to Ortiz, who then imported the data into his master Excel files and created a report that ran to 40 pages. He broke out year-to-date figures for the entire company as well as for each restaurant, did comparisons between year-ago results and the company's plan, and charted the effect of marketing promotions. On Monday afternoon Ortiz would ship the report to all the managers. (LeFranc plans to have Ortiz post the reports to a shared server soon so that managers can access the reports without E-mailing them back and forth.) The system of data sharing had some unintended but beneficial consequences. The managers at two of the biggest restaurants began competing hard against each other to post the highest results. And LeFranc started holding monthly meetings for all managers at which they explained their results to one another. All were accountable, most notably to their peers. The welcome mat The burning question for the newly self-directed team, however, was whether it could ramp up sales in a company that had been tainted by bankruptcy. The task was particularly hard because of what LeFranc admits was a bad decision he had made early on -- keeping the company name. "I didn't go there because it was such a radical change," he says ruefully. So the team went forward with larger signs and a sporty logo featuring the tarnished moniker. After the bankruptcy filing, the company's sales had dropped 8% to 10%. Then, in the fall of 1998, when LeFranc reduced the menu from 60 to 30 items to lower food costs, sales dropped another 7% within four months. (Since he had turned cash-flow positive during that time, he was sacrificing sales for profits.) To get his customers back, LeFranc had to find out who they were. So he turned to Gazelle Systems, a Newton, Mass., company he had come across at an industry convention in 1997. It had just four employees at the time, but LeFranc was blown away by its technology. Gazelle could develop a demographic profile of the restaurants' customers -- where they lived, where they shopped, and how much they earned and spent. The software company could determine whether the customers were married or single, male or female, parents, or sports fans. It also could find out how frequently they visited Louise's and how much they spent. Although large retailers and catalog companies relied on such information, no one, to LeFranc's knowledge, had ever applied such data-mining technology to a restaurant. Gazelle downloaded customer-purchase information from the restaurants' point-of-sale (POS) system and then matched it with in-depth demographic records in data banks that marketing companies offered for sale. Gazelle's data helped LeFranc overhaul his marketing approach. With maps pinpointing where his customers lived, for example, he could target specific streets with promotional material. "Instead of doing a direct mail of 495,000 pieces, we door-dropped 20,000 pieces," LeFranc says. "For a third of the cost of the mailing I got double the response." The number of "trials," as new customers are called in the industry, rose. The CEO had learned that 54% of his customers were women, which prompted him to put lighter fare on the menu -- salads, pastas with light sauces, and vegetarian dishes. He began to offer seafood dishes designed by a well-known Maui chef -- sea bass with white-bean tomato salad, and salmon on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes with pineapple-cilantro salsa. LeFranc calls such food "California Italian." It also turned out that 60% of the restaurants' customers had children aged 8 to 16, and 30% of those parents were single -- and time strapped, LeFranc assumed. That meant a huge potential for the company's takeout business. To grow the chain's already substantial takeout trade, LeFranc had one of his managers set up a toll-free phone number that would detect where a customer was calling from. The system would route the call to the nearest Louise's location. During the bankruptcy, "we never had time to focus on just sales building, as we can now," says the CEO. "We were always juggling priorities." With the team's full attention, sales grew 4.8% in the fourth quarter of 2000 and peaked with an 11.5% gain in December. In early 2001, sales rose another 6.7%. When a guest sits down for a lunch of grilled swordfish over fettuccine with a piquant tomato sauce at a Louise's in West Los Angeles, all the elements that LeFranc has put together are in evidence. The food arrives quickly; the steaming fish is juicy. And the sauce -- whose tomato base is outsourced to a supplier -- tastes homemade. The CEO has reason to complain only when a waiter clears an appetizer plate and leaves a guest without a fork for the main course. It's a small point, but LeFranc notices it -- just as he notices everything else. Ultimately, the triumphs of LeFranc's business are measured in tiny increments -- shave a percentage point on food costs, lift customer counts by 1% or 2%, get another $1.25 per average check, strive for three seatings a night instead of two. At some point, perhaps this year, LeFranc and his staff will have made all those changes. Revenues will be about as high as they can go, given the size of the restaurants, and margins will be healthy. Then Louise's can begin expanding once again -- but this time without disastrous results. The difference now is that LeFranc, the detail man, will be in charge. He figures he can open up another five locations without adding corporate overhead, so cash flow from those new restaurants would pour straight to the bottom line. Owner Jon Chait is in favor of the plan. "It's hard to have a restaurant business that's standing still," he says. In any industry, turnarounds are grueling. In the restaurant business, they're brutal. Without persistence, luck, and a bloodhound's attention to detail, they're fated to fail. LeFranc had all those things. So now he's finally back where he started -- ready for growth. ------------------ An Epicure's Recipe for Reality Anthony Bourdain, a professional chef and author of the best-selling memoir Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly, has run kitchens that were stunning successes and others that were dismal failures. He offered writer Samuel Fromartz his sobering advice on turnarounds. Inc.: What's it like working for a failing restaurant? Does it resemble a house of cards falling, or is it more gradual? Bourdain: It sucks. It's soul destroying in increments, particularly if you're proud of your own efforts there. I'd compare it less to a house of cards -- though many restaurants, if undercapitalized from the beginning are indeed that -- than to a progressive, lingering, painful, and disfiguring disease with occasional welcome, but ultimately meaningless, remissions. One's pride, love, hope, and self-image leach slowly into the bedpan along with the owner's money. Inc.: Have you ever tried to resuscitate a bankrupt restaurant? Bourdain: I have tried many, many times to resuscitate a dying restaurant. I've never succeeded, though I might have prolonged some death throes. I'd never do it again. Inc.: What would you say to a true pro who thinks he can turn around a failed restaurant without changing the name? Bourdain: I'd say good luck. I'm sure it can be done. It has been done. But the odds against it are enormous -- and it goes against all conventional wisdom to associate any bold new venture with a failed one. Most places try very hard to separate themselves in every way from any memory of the bad old days. The public is very unforgiving about certain cursed restaurant locations, some of which -- even though they are fabulous -- remain doomed for all who follow. The public hates the smell of failure. And the scent seems to linger from incarnation to incarnation. Can a seasoned pro pull it off? Like I said, good luck. Inc.: Restaurants always die. What's the secret to longevity? Bourdain: The secret to longevity is to decide early on what one does well and then do it relentlessly, fanatically well, never wavering, never letting things slide, never allowing oneself to lose sight of one's original standards and intentions, and not falling victim to trends or unreasonable fears. Keep the owner or chef -- whoever's got the marquee value -- on site always, or near to it. If the original famous chef leaves, immediately buy an even more famous one with his or her own style consistent with but different from the original. Lose David Wells? Buy Roger Clemens! Inc.: What would you say to a restaurateur who describes his cuisine as California Italian designed by a Maui chef? Bourdain: Cali-Italo-Luau? It sounds insane. It sounds loathsome. But then I am as knowledgeable of SoCal customs as I am of Dayak tribesmen, the Illuminati, or snake-handling cults. I'm still befuddled and appalled by Wolfgang Puck's pizzas -- so what do I know? Just keep that avocado away from my pasta, capisce? |
Copyright © Samuel Fromartz, 1994-2006 All rights reserved

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Just write SQL and get things done!
ScalikeJDBC is a tidy SQL-based DB access library for Scala developers. This library naturally wraps JDBC APIs and provides you easy-to-use and very flexible APIs. What's more, QueryDSL makes your code type-safe and reusable.
ScalikeJDBC is a practical and production-ready one. Use this library for your real projects.
Working on the JDBC layer
Whether you like it or not, JDBC is a stable standard interface. Since most of RDBMS supports JDBC interface, we can access RDBMS in the same way. We never release without passing all the unit tests with the following RDBMS.
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL
- H2 Database Engine
We believe that ScalikeJDBC basically works with any other RDBMS (Oracle, SQL Server and so on).
Amazon Redshift, Facebook Presto also supports JDBC
If you can access some datastore via JDBC interface, that means you can access them via ScalikeJDBC too.
Recently, Amazon Redshift and Facebook Presto support JDBC interface. You can access them via ScalikeJDBC!
Few dependencies
The core of ScalikeJDBC has so few dependencies that you won't be bothered by dependency hell.
- JDBC Drivers you need
- Commons DBCP
Of course, you can use c3p0 (or others) instead of commons-dbcp though ConnectionPool implementation for that isn't provided by default.
Unfortunately, no. Indeed, JDBC drivers block on socket IO. So using them to talk with RDBMS in async event driven architecture may not be appropriate. However, actually most of real world applications don't need event-driven architecture yet. JDBC is still important infrastructure for apps on the JVM.
If you really prefer non-blocking database access, take a look at ScalikeJDBC-Async. It provides non-blocking APIs to talk with PostgreSQL and MySQL in the JDBC way.
ScalikeJDBC-Async is still in the alpha stage. If you don't have the motivation to investigate or fix issues yourself, we recommend waiting until the stable version is released someday.
See also FAQs here: /documentation/faq.html
Getting Started
All you need to do is add ScalikeJDBC, JDBC driver and an slf4j implementation.
ScalikeJDBC 4.x
ScalikeJDBC 4 requires Java SE 8 or higher. If you still need to run your applications on Java SE 7, keep using ScalikeJDBC 2.5.
// Scala 2.12, 2.13 and 3
libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
"org.scalikejdbc" %% "scalikejdbc" % "4.2.1",
"com.h2database" % "h2" % "1.4.200",
"ch.qos.logback" % "logback-classic" % "1.2.12"
ScalikeJDBC 2.x
See ScalikeJDBC 2.x Documentation for details.
// Scala 2.10, 2.11, 2.12
libraryDependencies ++= Seq(
"org.scalikejdbc" %% "scalikejdbc" % "2.5.2",
"com.h2database" % "h2" % "1.4.200",
"ch.qos.logback" % "logback-classic" % "1.2.12"
First example
Put the above dependencies into your build.sbt
and run sbt console
import scalikejdbc._
// initialize JDBC driver & connection pool
ConnectionPool.singleton("jdbc:h2:mem:hello", "user", "pass")
// ad-hoc session provider on the REPL
implicit val session = AutoSession
// table creation, you can run DDL by using #execute as same as JDBC
create table members (
id serial not null primary key,
name varchar(64),
created_at timestamp not null
// insert initial data
Seq("Alice", "Bob", "Chris") foreach { name =>
sql"insert into members (name, created_at) values (${name}, current_timestamp)".update.apply()
// for now, retrieves all data as Map value
val entities: List[Map[String, Any]] = sql"select * from members".map(_.toMap).list.apply()
// defines entity object and extractor
import java.time._
case class Member(id: Long, name: Option[String], createdAt: ZonedDateTime)
object Member extends SQLSyntaxSupport[Member] {
override val tableName = "members"
def apply(rs: WrappedResultSet) = new Member(
rs.long("id"), rs.stringOpt("name"), rs.zonedDateTime("created_at"))
// find all members
val members: List[Member] = sql"select * from members".map(rs => Member(rs)).list.apply()
// use paste mode (:paste) on the Scala REPL
val m = Member.syntax("m")
val name = "Alice"
val alice: Option[Member] = withSQL {
select.from(Member as m).where.eq(m.name, name)
}.map(rs => Member(rs)).single.apply()
How did it go? If you'd like to know more details or practical examples, see documentation.
Quick Tour
Using only the Scala standard API & SQL
Library users don't need to learn so many library-specific rules or conventions. If you're already familiar with Scala's standard library APIs and basic SQLs, that much should be enough.
val name = "Alice"
// implicit session represents java.sql.Connection
val memberId: Option[Long] = DB readOnly { implicit session =>
sql"select id from members where name = ${name}" // don't worry, prevents SQL injection
.map(rs => rs.long("id")) // extracts values from rich java.sql.ResultSet
.single // single, list, traversable
.apply() // Side effect!!! runs the SQL using Connection
See in detail: /documentation/operations
Type-safe DSL
Since version 1.6, QueryDSL is available. It's a SQL-like and type-safe DSL to build DRY SQLs.
Here is an example:
val (p, c) = (Programmer.syntax("p"), Company.syntax("c"))
val programmers: Seq[Programmer] = DB.readOnly { implicit session =>
withSQL {
.from(Programmer as p)
.leftJoin(Company as c).on(p.companyId, c.id)
.where.eq(p.isDeleted, false)
}.map(Programmer(p, c)).list.apply()
See in detail: /documentation/query-dsl
Test code: src/test/scala/scalikejdbc/QueryInterfaceSpec.scala
Flexible transaction control
ScalikeJDBC provides several APIs for session/transaction control.
- DB autoCommit { implicit session => … }
- DB localTx { implicit session => … }
- DB withinTx { implicit session => … }
- DB readOnly { implicit session => … }
Here is an example which re-uses methods in both simple invocation and transactional operations.
object Product {
def create(name: String, price: Long)(implicit s: DBSession = AutoSession): Long = {
sql"insert into products values (${name}, ${price})"
.updateAndReturnGeneratedKey.apply() // returns auto-incremeneted id
def findById(id: Long)(implicit s: DBSession = AutoSession): Option[Product] = {
sql"select id, name, price, created_at from products where id = ${id}"
.map { rs => Product(rs) }.single.apply()
Product.findById(123) // borrows connection from pool and gives it back after execution
DB localTx { implicit session => // transactional session
val id = Product.create("ScalikeJDBC Cookbook", 200) // within transaction
val product = Product.findById(id) // within transaction
See in detail: /documentation/transaction
Useful Query Inspections
By default, ScalikeJDBC shows you what SQL is executed and where it is. We believe that is quite useful for debugging your apps. Logging only slow queries in production, but it also helps you.
[debug] s.StatementExecutor$$anon$1 - SQL execution completed
[Executed SQL]
select id, name from users where email = 'firstname.lastname@example.com'; (3 ms)
[Stack Trace]
See in detail: /documentation/query-inspector
Testing Support
Testing support which provides the following functionalities for ScalaTest and specs2.
- Rollback automatically after each test
- Testing with fixtures
See in detail: /documentation/testing
Reverse Engineering
You can easily get Scala code from existing database by using ScalikeJDBC's reverse engineering tool.
sbt "scalikejdbcGen [table-name (class-name)]"
sbt "scalikejdbcGen company"
sbt "scalikejdbcGen companies Company"
See in detail: /documentation/reverse-engineering
Play Framework Support
You can use ScalikeJDBC with Play framework 2 seamlessly. We promise you that it becomes more productive when used with scalikejdbc-mapper-generator.
See in detail: /documentation/playframework-support
Reactive Streams Support
ScalikeJDBC provides the Publisher interface of Reactive Streams to subscribe a stream from a database query.
See in detail: /documentation/reactivestreams-support
We're using ScalikeJDBC!
Many companies are already use ScalikeJDBC in their business!
Published binary files have the following copyright:
Copyright scalikejdbc.org
Apache License, Version 2.0
Related Products
ScalikeJDBC Extension: Non-blocking APIs in the JDBC way.
ScalikeJDBC-Async provides non-blocking APIs to talk with PostgreSQL and MySQL in the JDBC way.
This library is built with jasync-sql.
dbconsole is an extended sbt console to connect database.
Mac OS X, Linux
curl -L https://git.io/dbcon | sh
See in detail: /documentation/dbconsole
Skinny ORM
Skinny ORM is the default DB access library of Skinny Framework. Skinny ORM is built upon ScalikeJDBC.
In most cases, ORM makes things easier.


text:
Pret A Manger is a quick-service chain concept introduced in the United Kingdom. The custom-designed E&S package is minimal, yet highly efficient for outlets of varying sizes.
The founders of Pret are Sinclair Beecham and Julian Metcalfe, college friends who paired up 15 years ago to introduce in London a sleek foodservice concept designed to offer an alternative to hamburger-fries-shakes fast-food menus. The name Pret A Manger, meaning "ready to eat" in French, was taken from a restaurant in Hampstead, a London suburb that had tried to keep McDonald's from setting up business in the area.
Since the first Pret unit debuted, more than 100 other locations have been opened in the United Kingdom, 10 in New York City and two in Hong Kong. By 2004, 30 more units are expected to open in Manhattan, as well as more units in Hong Kong and Japan. International expansion has been fueled by, ironically, none other than McDonald's Corp., which last year secured a 33% interest in Pret.
Unlike its competitors, Pret's décor is industrial "chic" - creating a crisp, clean environment with reflective brushed aluminum walls, stools and diamond-shaped floors, stainless-steel refrigerated cases and a central serving counter with cash registers, freestanding and under-counter refrigerators, merchandising units, coffee and tea brewers, soup tureens and a convection oven. The few touches of color - a yellow wall and orange ceiling with suspended exposed pipes, as well as burgundy stars found on entrance mats, balloons, merchandising stands, packaging and menu boards - capture customers' attention amidst the contemporary, sleek ambiance.
At each Pret, explained Gabriel Yifrah, director of U.S. construction, menu items, mainly sandwiches and a selection of salads and desserts, are assembled and packaged on-premises and displayed in refrigerated display units. Soups, on-site baked croissants and cookies, and bottled and dispensed beverages also are an integral part of the menu mix. In its marketing literature and in Passion Facts, Pret emphasizes its use of "handmade, natural food." In addition, facts explain that, "Every Pret has its own kitchen. We don't have a factory. We make our sandwiches, baguettes and PretWraps one by one, in every shop, throughout the day. You won't find sell-by dates and storage information on our sandwiches and wraps. If our fresh food doesn't sell out each day, we give it away to charity rather than compromise our standards."
Unit staff begin food assembly at 7 a.m. and refresh the food supply throughout the day as needed. In a large unit, 10 stainless-steel prep tables and refrigerated ingredient display units are arranged so employees can assemble fresh ingredients into sandwiches (1,500 are made daily on average), then wrap and package them in logoed boxes (inscribed with the Pret logo and message "handmade in this Pret today" and listing natural ingredients) for presentation in refrigerated display units located in the front of the house. Certain designated sandwiches are made at specific tables. Assembly instructions, along with photographs of how each ingredient is positioned, are available at each station for employees' reference. Desserts and salads are assembled here, as well.
Also in the kitchen are coffee brewers, a bean grinder, an iced-tea brewer and a countertop slicer for cutting meats and vegetables. The only products heated on-premise are soups, which are delivered to each unit in one-gallon sealed plastic bags and rethermalized in a 10-gallon electric steam-jacketed kettle before being taken out front and placed in tureens for holding and serving.
Each unit's kitchen is equipped, as well, with sinks for washing cutting boards, scoops and other utensils, and for sanitizing fruit and vegetables. Overhead steel shelving units are positioned throughout the kitchen, while floors are protected by water-resistant, non-stick vinyl.
After preparation and assembly, all menu items, which may total up to 31 each day, are taken to the front of house for display. Refrigerated items, including bottled beverages, are placed in one of five floor-to-ceiling refrigerated cases that have been positioned side by side near the entranceway.
A centrally positioned serving counter is situated perpendicular to the refrigerated cases. During busy traffic periods, eight cashiers are positioned shoulder-to-shoulder to offer quick check-out. "We want to serve customers in 90 seconds or less," explained Naomi Golding, general manager of the 42nd Street NYC unit.
Behind the counter from left to right in this Pret unit are a reach-in refrigerator used primarily for milk storage, two iced-tea dispensers, a drip coffee dispenser, coffee machines that produce cappuccino, latte, mocha and espresso drinks, two soup tureens and a convection oven for baking croissants and cookies, as well as tomatoes, almonds and pine nuts. Products made in the oven are placed across the aisle at the front countertop display unit. Space below the back counters is dedicated to dry and refrigerated storage.
At the front counters, customers' orders are placed either into take-out bags or on 12-inch aluminum round trays. Seating is available at larger units for 72 on stools with aluminum bases and vinyl cushions placed at bar-counters lining the walls and at round tables with marble tops.
The simplicity of the Pret concept, along with its emphasis on food variety, is what Yifrah claimed to be the chief reason for its success. Even the process for purchasing equipment was streamlined. "We started by purchasing the same equipment used in the U.K. and importing it to the States," explained Yifrah. "Now, we have the equipment customized in the States based on specifications established in the U.K. The equipment here and in the U.K. looks alike. The only difference is where it is produced." Pret's success can also be attributed to employee training and development that contribute to below industry average turnover.
With its ambitious expectations for expansion, Pret A Manger continues to refine a formula that has led to its current success. Selecting E&S so that products are productive and appropriate for the cold menu concept, as well as maintaining them to reflect the shiny, contemporary ambiance will continue to challenge the enterprising owners as they venture into the international marketplace.


text:
Sun Babies Contest is Over Sunday – Vote Now!
Brody and Chloe are still close in votes. The poll closes midnight on Sunday. Vote now!
The winner will be announced Aug. 6 and will receive $150 of baby gear from Swanky Babies, a family four-pack to Friday Feast Night at the Dust Devils, and a $379 studio photography package from Mepho Photography!


text:
China Journalists Edward Wong & Paul Mooney to Testify before Congress
In response to the precarious situation of U.S. journalists in China where approximately 24 New York Times and Bloomberg reporters may not have their visas renewed, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China will host a roundtable discussion on the issue, tomorrow, December 11 at 3:30 PM. The event will be held in Washington, D.C. at the Capitol Visitors Center, Room SVC 203-202 .
Panelists will include Paul Mooney, who was outright denied a journalist visa to work as Reuter's Beijing correspondent, Edward Wong, current New York Times China correspondent, Bob Dietz, Asia Program Coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists and Sarah Cook, Senior Research Analyst for East Asia at Freedom House.
Because of the demand for this roundtable, an RSVP is required. Please RSVP, no later than 10 AM on December 11 to Judy Wright at firstname.lastname@example.com
The roundtable will also be broadcast live on the web at: http://www.cecc.gov/events/roundtables/chinas-treatment-of-foreign-journalists
Since Vice President Biden's visit to Beijing where he met with U.S. journalists and publicly raised the issue of press censorship, there have not been any reports of any New York Times or Bloomberg correspondents receiving their visas. To the contrary, in a series of Twitter posts, New York Times China correspondent Ian Johnson stated that the first reporters will be forced to leave on December 17, presumably the expiration date of their current visa, with all to leave by December 31.
Yesterday, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) released its 2013 Year-End statement, noting yet another year of negative trends. The FCCC found "…that the Chinese authorities are increasingly using the denial of visas, or delays in their approval, in an apparent effort to influence journalists' coverage. No correspondents for the New York Times and Bloomberg have yet been able to renew their annual residence visas, which have been subject to unusual and unexplained delays this year."
The FCCC also noted that potential censorship goes beyond China's borders, giving credence to author Peter Manseau's belief that in 2010 the Chinese embassy contacted senior editors at the Washington Post to kill his story on Falun Gong in DC. Although Manseau's incident was in 2010, the FCCC reported that in 2013, "…[o]n at least two occasions this year Chinese embassy staff in foreign capitals have approached the headquarters of foreign media and complained about their China-based correspondents' coverage, demanding that their reports be removed from their websites and suggesting that they produce more positive China coverage." One wonders how many other occasions there have been.
If you are in DC tomorrow, this should be an interesting and important event. Again, RSVP is necessary by 10 AM tomorrow to email@example.com.
For those interested in learning more about foreign journalists' visa troubles, please see China Law & Policy's three-part series with Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.


text:
Create a Website Account - Manage notification subscriptions, save form progress and more.
As the County Public Defender, Delphia T. Simpson is the attorney officially assigned to represent all clients of the Office. She is assisted by a highly skilled staff of 13 experienced trial lawyers who are also dedicated to public defense as a career. They are further augmented by 60 to 80 volunteer student lawyers and investigators who are also committed to public defense as a calling. All of these regular and volunteer staff personnel are assigned by Ms. Simpson to work on your case as a team whereby all of the resources of the Office can be readily available to provide you with top notch legal representation at all times. Ms. Simpson will also select and monitor one of her regular staff lawyers to lead the team that will work on your case, and that experienced trial lawyer will become the primary attorney responsible for your case.
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Delphia T. Simpson has served as the County Public Defender since her appointment to the Office by the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners in November 2017. Predecessors to successively hold the Office prior to that were Lloyd E. Powell, who was the Public Defender from 1980 to 2017, Judge George Alexander, Daniel G. Bambery, Magistrate Judge William R. Rekshan, and V. Carl Shaner. The Office has been an integral department of Washtenaw County Government since September 1971.
Return to Public Defender Page.
While Washtenaw County Public Defenders are highly trained, experienced and skilled trial lawyers who operate as teams that specialize in criminal law and local court processes, their services are provided only or primarily for those who do not have sufficient financial means to hire their own private counsel. Thus, anyone who can afford to hire a private attorney should do so. The Office of Public Defender is also an integral part of county government and has a smooth working relationship with all of the major components of the local criminal justice system. The competent and dedicated trial lawyers who comprise the staff of the Office can be relied upon to provide top notch defense as a calling and to fight zealously for what is in the best interests of their clients.
Return to the Public Defender Page
While the Prosecutor has the duty to represent the State in proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt in the pursuit of justice, the Public Defender has the adversarial, check and balance duty to fight zealously and skillfully to ensure that a miscarriage of justice does not occur; that the innocent are not falsely or mistakenly convicted and punished while the guilty escape penalty and remain free to continue to harm, abuse and endanger the community; that individual constitutional rights are always protected, fair treatment and due process are always received and everything possible is always done for what is truly in the best interest of the client; and that clients are always competently and candidly advised to that effect with the clear understanding always that it is the individual client who retains the inalienable right to make the ultimate decision of whether to go to trial before a Jury or before a Judge (i.e. Bench Trial), or to accept a plea or sentence bargain.
If not incarcerated, a client is usually asked to appear on a specific court date or within a certain number of days after receiving a ticket from a police officer. At that time, the Judge will ask if you need an appointed attorney. Typically, you will fill out a form which asks questions about your income and expenses. The Judge decides whether or not the Public Defender will be appointed to represent you. If a person is incarcerated, the person will be brought before a Magistrate at the Washtenaw County Jail and asked about their income and expenses. After reviewing the information, the Magistrate will make a decision as to whether or not the Public Defender will be appointed. If the Public Defender is appointed, the attorney assigned to the case will go to the Washtenaw County Jail to meet with and interview an incarcerated client. In-custody Defendants may also be transported to a Misdemeanor Court to appear before the assigned Judge on a case.
On Felony cases, an arrest warrant is usually issued by the Prosecutor Office. The Defendant may be able to appear before a Magistrate for arraignment if they receive notice of the charges. Usually the person is arrested on the warrant by the police. In either situation, the Defendant will be asked whether or not a court appointed attorney is needed. A financial information form will be given to the Defendant to complete. If the Public Defender is appointed, in-custody clients can expect that a member of the Public Defender trial lawyer team will seek to timely meet with them well before their court date to discuss the case with them and review any police report information. Defendants who are not in custody are given information on how to contact the Office to find out who on the Public Defender team will be the lead trial lawyer assigned to them.
The Public Defender Office can be appointed at any time during Court proceedings, up to and including trial and sentencing. Our office is often appointed if the Defendant has a change in financial circumstances. We are also appointed as stand-by legal counselor Defendants who choose to represent themselves.
A Public Defender is made available on a weekly basis for 'Attorney Of The Week' duty. That attorney serves a community service function by answering general questions from the public. An Assistant Public Defender assigned as 'Attorney Of The Week' may also handle emergencies that would require the presence of an attorney.


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There's one recipe that every couple makes in life. The best recipe you could ever wish for, want, or need. A precious sweet baby. Sometimes you go your entire life wanting that baby, waiting for the perfect time. You'll never be ready, yet you've always been ready. Something that tells you that the time is right. Signs, feelings, and emotions leading until the day that you find out and see those two little lines appear. You're PREGNANT!
It's at that moment where the whole world stops, you're heart grows bigger, you're mind runs wild, and tears and smiles follow within seconds. It's the moment you're ready, the moment you've always dreamed of. It's your turn to bring an amazing sweet innocent life into this world. They need you as much as you need them. It's when you become a mommy your life just makes that much more sense.
To know that you've made such a miracle, a blessing, which is your own beautiful baby. It's crazy to think that I always wanted to be the age that my mother conceived me as I conceive my own child. What I find absolutely comforting is that not only am I the same age, but it's the same exact time frame. My mother conceived me when she was 26 and it was October. My due date was July 19th, but I was born on the 24th. Now for our precious baby the due date is July 20th. It makes me feel that much closer to my mother. It's the little signs that make me know they're watching over me. My parents would have made the absolute best grandparents, instead our baby will have two beautiful Guardian Angels.
I feel blessed, and overwhelmed with joy,
We can't wait for our sweet baby.
The post Our Sweet Baby appeared first on Courtney's Sweets.


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Friends List
Synonyms: | flist, friendslist, friends page, watch list, watchlist, reading list |
See also: | LiveJournal, InsaneJournal, JournalFen, Dreamwidth, deviantArt, Friending Meme |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
In on-line social networking sites, the term friends or friends list is used to describe a privileged relationship between users, but the usage differs from network to network. For example, friends lists can be used to compile blogs, journals, art or any content posted to such a network on a watch list, to manage journal access, or for filtering content into specific friend groups. Below lists the specific features of each network that fans congregate on and use.
On LiveJournal
- Journal access control: If A has friended B, then B can see posts that A marks as limited to their friends list. This allows A to control access to these posts, rather than publishing publicly to their journal, the automatic RSS feed, and ultimately the whole Internet.[1] There are ways to control access to different posts for specific users: see Friends Groups, defined below.
- Journal post watching: If A has friended B, then A will automatically see B's posts in A's friends page.[2] The LiveJournal system will collect B's public posts together with A's other "friends" and communities, and display them in a collated list, the friends page. A less-fraught and more accurate name for this is this is Watch list.
- Note that if A has friended B, but not the other way around, A will see B's public posts, but will not have any access to B's friendslocked posts. The locked posts will be invisible until/unless B friends A.
- Community post watching: If A friends Community C, all of the public posts in C will appear on A's friends list. However, communities can limit viewing access on any or all posts to members of that LiveJournal community.
Joining a community and watching (friending) it are two separate actions, while friending a personal journal combines both relationships in one action.
The journals designated as Friends are thus, collectively, one's Friends list or flist.
A journal with many Friend of relationships indicates that it is popular, whether for the personality of the author or the entertaining, even outrageous posts. This apparent popularity can be subverted by using Sockpuppets or other hacks.[3]
Controversy Regarding Terminology
Many people have pointed out how complex, and possibly fraught with emotion the word "friend" is, and how its use in social networks may be misleading in many aspects.[4] One doesn't need to consider another person a friend in order to want to allow them access to non-public information. Wishing to watch another journal's posts does not necessarily mean that one considers them a personal friend.[5]
Another example of the misleading use of the term "friend" is the process of removing someone from your collated list of watched journals. On Livejournal this is known as "de-friending," an extremely emotionally loaded term that may not represent an accurate state of affairs. Sometimes a journal may in fact be dropped from another journal's aggregate list because journal owner A sincerely wishes to end her friendship with journal owner B, but more often than not it is a matter of time constraints or diverging interests, and the journal owners may remain friends or friendly acquaintances.
Many commentators have suggested separating the access control and the watch functions, to reduce confusion about the inter-personal (or inter-journal) relationships.[citation needed] As a result of this criticism, the LJ code fork Dreamwidth renamed the friends list (reading list) and split the functions into access and subscription.[6]
Friends Groups
This article or section needs expansion. |
Meta/Further Reading
- ^ Livejournal FAQ #24 accessed October 5, 2008)
- ^ Livejournal FAQ #219 accessed October 5, 2008)
- ^ Hacking Reputation in Bruce Schneier's blog, December 7, 2006 (accessed 2008-10-11)
- ^ Friends offer more than a link by Ruth Limkin, Courier-Mail [Australia] January 07, 2008, (accessed 2008-10-11)
- ^ Friends, friendsters, and top 8: Writing community into being on social network sites by danah boyd. First Monday, vol. 12, no. 2 (December 2006) (accessed 2008-10-11)
- ^ Dreamwidth changes from LJ in the Dreamwidth wiki, (accessed 2009-05-25)


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Film to revist '83 Tiger hoop team
MIDDLEBURY — In 1983, the Middlebury Union High School boys' basketball team shocked the Vermont sports world.
Despite an undefeated regular season, the Tigers were lightly regarded heading into the Division I playoffs. Almost all of their wins came against D-II teams, not against the D-I iron.
Even when MUHS improved to 23-0 with three playoff wins, no one gave the Tigers much of a chance against 22-1 St. Johnsbury. The two-time defending champion Hilltoppers were undefeated in Vermont, and they had Henry Dalrymple, who later starred at Georgia Tech and is considered the best-ever Vermont high school player.
"The underdog always hopes," said Mark Mooney Jr., a 1983 MUHS classmate of most of the Tigers' starting lineup. "But … nobody thought they were going to win."
Mooney, now the owner of two businesses in Arlington, Va., one a marketing firm called NeoNicheStrategies, is making a documentary film that will feature what happened next: In the final at the University of Vermont's Patrick Gymnasium, the Tigers stunned the Hilltoppers, 73-57, to win the school's only boys' hoop title.
Mooney, who will be filming interviews in the area this week in conjunction with the class of 1983's 30th reunion, said not only the result attracted him to the story: Even before the playoffs the team had captured the area's affection and turned home games into major events.
"The whole community felt like part of the team," Mooney said. "It was a small town where you know all the boys. It was super. It was like 'Hoosiers' as a fan. It was this unbelievable, surreal experience that nobody, particularly me, expected. We were all shocked, and thrilled. It was like this cherry on top of this great sundae. We had this great experience, and then they won the championship."
Rollie White, the team's coach and then an MUHS math teacher, now the principal of Community Investment Counselors in Middlebury, remembers the excitement began to build when the Tigers rolled through the annual Rutland holiday tournament.
"When we won that relatively easily … the crowds started picking up," White said. "It took a little while for the town to come in and watch."
Soon seats became scarce, especially when Montpelier visited for the last home game of the regular season.
"When we played Montpelier here it was one of those things where, 'Can everybody slide down and crowd in and get some more people in here?'" White said.
Mooney hopes to recapture some of that magic this week in his documentary. On Monday, at Patrick Gym he will speak with former St. Johnsbury coach Layne Higgs and other coaches and media members from that era, including media members Andy Gardiner and Tony Adams.
On Tuesday, he will talk to team members, parents, community members, teachers, coaches and others around town, and on Wednesday he plans a panel discussion at MUHS that will feature White and team members Bob Pels, Rob Hamlin, Mike Sommers, Joe Calavita, Jim Daly, Shane White, Rick Wesley, Pete Gutterson, Dan Chaplin and Tom Boise.
Thursday brings a noon public reception for the 1983 MUHS class that will feature special recognition to teachers, coaches, the 1983 squad and the 2004 MUHS girls' championship hoop team.
Mooney, a UVM graduate who played hockey at MUHS and then coached that sport at South Burlington High before moving to Virginia, also has a Sept. 15 date in Washington, D.C., with Henry Dalrymple.
The idea for a documentary came hand-in-hand with the reunion.
"I realized this was a one-time opportunity to capture the team on film … Most of the guys on the team were seniors and were '83 grads," Mooney said. "We have this incredible opportunity to get them all in one place."
What he doesn't have is a ton of experience making movies, although he has produced videos for his marketing firm.
But Mooney is unfazed.
"What I've found by being an entrepreneur is the willingness to do (the work) is half the battle," he said. "Action is really the king."
Mooney also believes the subject matter will help carry the day.
"I have a vision that is really the perfect storm of the Cinderella story," Mooney said. "We're going to tell it like it was. We're not going to have to do any embellishment to tell the story."
Mooney acknowledges that not all considered the Tigers to be underdogs — including the team.
"They probably knew what they were capable of. But I don't think anybody else did," he said.
White agreed. The Tigers believed they would win, he said, and if anything were disappointed they didn't play their best in a three-point semifinal win over South Burlington.
"The South Burlington game was almost an upset," White said. "We almost lost."
Over time, others have come to view the Tigers differently. In an email to Mooney, current South Burlington coach Mike Kennedy noted that both Calavita, the team's six-foot-seven center, and Hamlin, a guard who scored 42 points in the final and averaged about 27 points per game, went on to play for UVM. Both ended up as captains there. Hamlin was a role player, while Calavita racked up 1,464 points and 712 rebounds.
"I've always thought your team was one of the most underrated teams in Vermont history," Kennedy wrote. "You were undefeated, beat a very good SB team in the semis, a great St. J team in the finals, and had two guys go on to play D1 college hoops."
White said what made the Tigers a good team was each knew and accepted his assignments. None complained that more plays were run for Hamlin, the team's primary shooter, for example. White recalled an incident in which an opposing player told one of the Tigers that Hamlin was a ball-hog because he shot so much, and the response the opponent received was, "That's his job."
"Every coach, if he gets lucky, has a team that understands their roles," White said. "And that club did."
And the word that White kept returning to while describing the Tigers was "loose." He said the team would spend hours discussing the right music mix for bus rides, and would never tighten up before games — the Tigers had the ability to relax and have fun while playing their best basketball.
White recalled talking to then South Burlington coach Dave LaPointe.
"(He) came over after the game and said, 'I don't really believe in having my team being that loose, but it really works for you guys.'"
In the final, St. Johnsbury scored the first four points, but the Tigers responded with an 18-4 run and led by at least nine points the rest of the way, despite 33 from Dalrymple.
White said the Tiger defense forced turnovers that were converted into easy layups, and in the meantime Hamlin caught fire, scoring 42 points in the last Vermont boys' high school game before the three-point line was adopted.
"If they had had the three-point shot, he would have scored well over 50," White said.
Ultimately, Mooney sees the film on the team as a tribute to his hometown and alma mater.
"This project was triggered by all of the discussions related to the '83 reunion and inspired by the wonderful memories of the Middlebury community, commitment of teachers and coaches, and all the folks that made growing up there so special," he said. "The hoops team seemed to channel that spirit into a magical season, a once in a lifetime experience. We all felt strongly connected to it."
Andy Kirkaldy may be reached at [email protected].
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MIDDLEBURY — Bernard D. Kimball, 76, passed away in Bennington Hospital on Jan. 10, 2023. … (read more)
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BRISTOL — A memorial service for Mark A. Nelson of Bristol will be held 1 p.m. on Saturday … (read more)


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"Fake news fabricated as truth that panders to its audience's ideologies and promises an illusion of the future – enough to compel people to join an imagined cause."
"Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art."
Bill Bernbach
"As an advertiser we must assume responsibility for everything we do, because everything we do has the potential to make someone think something or do something.
And that 'something' can be good or bad. It is up to us to steer it toward good."
Bruce McTague
If I hear one more politician or troll commenter online say "not one vote was affected by Russian efforts during the Presidential campaign" I am gonna tear my hair out.
While I have talked about 'fake news' and the responsibility media has in reporting, I have avoided talking about how Russia influenced the Presidential campaign because it sounds political and politicians have made simplistic soundbites the discussion point by saying shit like "can anyone point to any evidence that one vote was changed".
Today I am going to point … and I am not a politician and now I have a report to point to <which I will highlight in a couple of moments>.
Suffice it to say since the election of Donald J Trump and following the widespread debate about how fake news on social media may have contributed to his victory I have racked my brain on how to point out to people how, if done effectively, a Russian media campaign <fake news initiative> could have certainly impacted behavior at the election booth.
I wanted to do so not because I know for sure that votes were affected but rather because by not even considering, or acknowledging, that people may have been affected enough to influence their vote means we diminish the potential impact of a real propaganda campaign.
While non advertising people most often speak of "advertising creates awareness" <at best> or "I am not impacted by advertising" <at worst> … they are wrong.
The truth <inside the hallways of advertising agencies around the world> is that we speak of influencing real behavior – change brand preferences, convince someone to try, affect attitudes toward a particular brand or product <your own or a competitor>, shift preferences from one brand or product to another and even educate to create an impact in terms of behavior.
Advertising and professional communications is business … the business of persuading people to think things and do things. It may be immediate actions or it may be the process of engaging to ultimately affect actions … but I cannot think of one business spending one dollar on professional communications who does not desire to persuade people to think at least one thing with the intent to create at least one type of behavior.
I have sat through hundreds of meetings analyzing shifts in attitudes & behavior <linked to sales of my business as well as shifts in competitors business> scouring information with regard to perceptions, persuasion, purchase intent, impact of influencers, etc.
I have sat through thousands of hours of discussion on ideas, impressions and attitudes about a brand or product all with the intent to find something that will predispose someone to see it in some positive light in which it will compel someone to buy it versus something else.
I say all of this because it is absolutely nuts to suggest an effective propaganda or fake news <or let's call it what it really was … an advertising campaign driven by social media> cannot affect people's behaviors & attitudes.
Absolutely nuts.
I wrote today because a company called Trend Micro, a cybersecurity firm, just issued an 81 page study called Fake News and Cyber Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of Social Media.
They call it "forward thinking threat research" … I would have suggested they could have contacted any global advertising agency who could have shown them study after study with regard to how advertising can affect behavior & change attitudes.
That said.
The report does do what I have been unable to unearth in all my files of Attitude & Usage studies and communications research … they show specific tactics and plans and costs and results. They show you what a communication plan, done effectively, can do.
And, suffice it to say, it doesn't take a shitload of money to effectively propagate lies, false narratives and fake news.
They provide an analysis focusing on fake news and alternative storylines and the use of influencers <influencers & influencer campaigns: is what every Public Relations agency in the world does for their clients every single day> as well as the overall effect in manipulating social behavior.
Their report is actually quite similar to what we in the advertising & communications business look at every week … except we do so in much more detail picking apart the minutiae in order to see what button we can push to … well … push someone a little closer to doing what we would like them to do.
With regard to the Presidential campaign, I want to be clear, what effective propaganda can do:
- It can make someone seem smarter
- It can make someone seem worse than they are
If those are two separate someones, you have created a distinction gap between the someones. I could argue that the Russians did exactly that … made an 'incompetent someone' edge a little closer to appearing competent and made a 'flawed someone' edge a little closer to being worse than flawed.
That can make a difference when market share equals millions of dollars or thousands of votes, not millions, equals a presidency.
Some people will never be convinced that a propaganda effort, or an advertising campaign, can actually affect how they think and what they do.
That is too bad.
They would be wrong … but purposefully ignorant type wrong.
But I do believe everyone would agree that discerning truth from fiction is more difficult today than it has ever been and I tend to believe everyone doesn't like that. Which means it is increasingly important that people not only think a little more about what they are absorbing information wise but maybe we need to become better at helping people question what they see.
This is where leaders & influencers really do matter.
They need to stop undermining good sources of truth simply because that source may not support some narrative they want. Politifacts and maybe Snopes and a variety of other locations do a really nice job of sifting through fact versus fiction in a mostly unbiased way. And, yet, enough people diminish their value when it don't match their narrative that they remain slotted as a viable source for some people and not a viable source for others. We need to find some universally accepted locations of truth.
Some people will not be happy about what they see but the real enemy is fake news and created fictional narrative and not half-truths or misused facts.
But all people should be happy with truth … and not being fooled by fake news and cyber propaganda.
The Russians did affect the 2016 election. I cannot tell you how much or if it represented a different result than would have happened if they had not been involved <although my gut professional instincts suggest they shifted the dial enough to make a difference>. I will tell anyone reading this if you gave MillwardBrown (or any viable advertising agency which has some programmatic planning) maybe $50k and all the county data & all the media information they could clearly, and unequivocally, show vote results in counties with Russia-driven messaging versus non-Russian messaging counties. Shit. That's what they do in any media review meeting.
But, at this point, we shouldn't debate the result we should be discussing how efforts like this, when done effectively, can impact our view on things, ideas and people. Because if we can all admit that, well, we are halfway to getting closer toward real truth.
And, to me, that sounds good – not a fake goal.
Fake News and Cyber Propaganda: The Use and Abuse of Social Media
The report from Trend Micro, a cybersecurity firm, is 81 pages long but if you have the time … worth every second to read.
The Fake News Machine research paper comes at a time of increasing concern across the globe about the hacking of elections and the ways that fake news on social media has manipulated voters. The report delves into the underground marketplaces that can allow campaigns, political parties, private companies and other entities to strategically create and distribute fake content to shift public perceptions.


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Related links:
Lyra, the Lyre, is a type of small harp held in the player's lap. The brightest star in Lyra, Vega, is placed in the handle of the harp. A small parallelogram of four faint stars just to the southeast of Vega outline the harp itself. Lyra is one of three constellations whose brightest stars form the Summer Triangle.
Vega is a very bright star (the fifth brightest in the whole sky) and is very close. Lyra is also home to one of the brightest, loveliest planetary nebulae, the Ring Nebula. It can be viewed with binoculars, although it's distinctive smoke-ring shape cannot.
According to Greek mythology, the lyre was invented by Hermes as a child when he strung a tortoise shell. He traded the lyre to Apollo, who then gave it to his son, Orpheus, a great poet and musician. Some Asian traditions see the bright star Vega as the Weaving-Princess star who marries a shepherd, the star Altair.
The Lyrid meteor shower happens in April each year. The meteors in the Lyrid meteor shower seem to shoot outward from the constellation Lyra.


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Publication Ethics and Ethical and Malpractice Statement Academy of IRMBR is committed to maintaining a high academic standard of the journal. The publisher is non-political (i.e., only scholarly) and absolutely unbiased to any political party or ideology (religious, national, ideological), and completely research-based. Thus we commit to maintain a high ethical standard and be absolutely impartial to anyone. We expect similar standards from the editors and reviewers. Honesty, originality and fair dealing on the part of authors, and fairness, objectivity and confidentiality on the part of editors and reviewers are among the critical values that enable us to achieve the journal aim. The publisher respects the codes of conduct and international standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and available free of charge on its website (http://publicationethics.org/). Any behaviour against publication ethics when proven will be treated as publication malpractice and beyond doubt is unacceptable. Authors of Academy of IRMBR must confirm the following: Submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author(s). Only unpublished manuscripts should be submitted. It is unethical to submit a manuscript to more than one journal concurrently. Any conflict of interest must be clearly stated. Acknowledge the sources of data used in the development of the manuscript. All errors discovered in the manuscript after submission must be swiftly communicated to the Editor. Reviewers of academy of IRMBR must confirm the following: That all manuscripts are reviewed in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry nor political values of author(s). That any observed conflict of interest during the review process must be communicated to the Editor. That all information pertaining to the manuscript is kept confidential That any information that may be the reason for the rejection of publication of a manuscript must be communicated to the Editor. Editors of Academy of IRMBR must confirm the following: That all manuscripts are evaluated in fairness based on the intellectual content of the paper regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, citizenry nor political values of authors. That information pertaining manuscripts are kept confidential. That any observed conflict of interest pertaining manuscripts must be disclosed. The Editorial Board takes responsibility for making publication decisions for submitted manuscripts based on the reviewer's evaluation of the manuscript, policies of the journal editorial board and legal restrain acting against plagiarism, libel and copyright infringement. Independence: Editor have the responsibility for acceptance or rejection of manuscripts rests with the Editors. Doing so normally entails advice from Reviewers; however, manuscripts that Editors deem clearly inappropriate may be rejected without such review. Unbiased: Editors have the duty to judge manuscripts only on their scholarly merits. Editors should operate without personal or ideological favoritism or malice. Conflict of Interest: Editors should avoid any practice that gives rise to a conflict of interest or the reasonable appearance of one. Confidentiality: Editors and their editorial staff including student workers shall not disclose information about a manuscript to anyone other than Reviewers and Authors. Review Quality: Normally, three Reviewers should be invited to comment on a manuscript, but a minimum of two Reviewers is acceptable. Authors may request that certain Reviewers not be used, but this decision should be left to Editor's discretion. Timeliness: Editors should take steps to ensure the timely review of all manuscripts and respond promptly to inquiries from Authors about the status of a review. Decision Quality: Editors should write high-quality editorial letters that integrate reviewer comments and offer additional suggestions to the Author. Editors should not send a decision letter, without explanation, attached to a set of reviewer comments. Accuracy: An Editor presented with convincing evidence by a Reviewer that the substance or conclusion of an unpublished manuscript is erroneous should promptly inform the Author. If similar evidence is presented for a published manuscript, the Editor should ensure prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as appropriate. Authority: The Editor-in-Chief should respect the Journal's constituents (readers, Authors, Reviewers, Editors, editorial staff and publisher), and work to ensure the honesty and integrity of the Journal's contents and continuous improvement in journal quality. |
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